Orange Part 2

Learning to surf wore me out in a way I had never experienced before. I slept like a rock that had taken three Valiums that night. I had a couple interesting dreams though, one I recall had a gray bunny with quite an odd mask fixed to its face. It would not shut up about the fourth dimension, or some ancient block of cheese that would destroy the world. I have very odd dreams.

When I met Rick at the beach I told him all about the odd dream and he just started to laugh.

"So you're telling me you dreamt of a rabbit wearing a mask talking about the fourth dimension and killer cheddar? What the hell did you eat before going to bed?"Rick said while gasping for breath. Clearly the inner workings of my subconscious were comedy gold. After a while I found myself laughing along with Rick, I just could not help it. I cannot say why, but up until talking to Rick, I took my ominous bunny time cheese dream very seriously.
I hate to keep coming back to her but I blame Elena 100%. I knew how to kid around before her. I knew what was funny. Everything had been so goddamn serious with that harpy; there was never any time for fun with her. When she was not teaching me something she was talking about what our relationship meant to me, and what it meant to her.
Thinking about it afterwords made me absolutely sick.
I realized while laughing along with Rick for almost the entire school year, I had been some person I so clearly was not. I had become a person who could not laugh in the face of the sheer ridiculousness of a time bending bunny in a masquerade talking about the muenster of doom.

While this was going on in my head I just hugged Rick. I can see no other reason for this other than his help to bring my sense of humor back.
The weirder part was him hugging me back.

"Uh...sorry. I uhm... I'm just really happy I could have a good laugh. Being with Elena sort of made everything pretty serious. The future was serious, our relationship was serious, our choice of movie from Blockbuster was serious, my choice of meat at a restaurant was serious. If I had told Elena about that dream she would have gotten out some stupid dream journal to find out what they dream meant because they are 'serious messages from your subconscious'. Hell she'd probably even have asked me what kind of cheese it was for further meaning. I guess it was nice to just laugh at something and not get all serious about it." I said rather solemnly.

"Woah dude, this Elena girl really fucked you up didn't she? I knew it was a nasty breakup, but this is serious. I've never seen a dude in such a funk over one chick." Rick said, his green eyes staring intensely at me. Once again Rick showed a quality I had never seen in any of my friends, he looked you straight in the eye when he talked to you.

"I don't really wanna talk about it now. I'd rather get my mind of it for a while and keep learning to ride the waves. I think I'd like to talk about it later though, maybe over lunch or something." I said drawing indeterminate shapes in the sand with my foot.

"Yeah that's fine, but I hope you're willing to talk about it later. It sounds like it's really getting you down, and I don't wanna see my new friend down in the dumps!" Rick said with a huge grin.

This kid was too surreal for me. I was so used to kids being superficial or moody. I just assumed all teenagers were like that and we would grow out of it or something, but Rick seemed as if he had never heard of 'the moody teenager'. His very aura made me forget that I even had any kind of woes. It must have been growing up with all that Florida sun or something that made him so, well to put it simply, sunny. I had to find out though; I wanted to know how to be more like him. I was tired of moping and treating life like some great problem that constantly needed to be solved.

Rick helped me say 'no more!' with a simple dip into the salty surf as the waves grew higher and a couple of 'choice' waves came in and tested what I learned so far.
According to Rick the fact that I even stayed on for 5 seconds showed how quick I was learning. If it were anyone else I would think that they sparing my feelings or something, but Rick looked me straight in the eye when he said it with a huge smile that no one could deny.

"Well I'm starving and it's clear you're coming along really good. I think we should go to my house, make some lunch, have a heart to heart, and then melt some faces with a couple of choice songs from Guitar Hero. I'm a big fan of grilled cheese accompanied by Misirlou, how about you?" Rick asked as we paddled back to shore.

We headed back to Rick's house, a small comfortable looking house. It was smaller than most beach houses I had seen, but it still looked very nice. We went inside and I was surprised by how quiet it was. It was fairly neat. No one was there which struck me as odd so I asked,

"Hey Rick where are your parents at?"

"I'll explain later." He said in a rather different tone; it was not quite right. I could not quite figure out what was missing from it.

"How does sharp cheddar and mozzarella sound to you?" Rick asked.

"It's cheese, in my opinion you cannot go wrong. Plus I'm so hungry you could put a rotting boar in front of me and I would most likely eat it with the help of some salt" I responded whilst rubbing my stomach.

"Perfect!" Rick explained while buttering the bread for our sandwiches. It smelled heavenly as it sizzled in the cast iron pan Rick was using. Rick came back with two perfectly golden brown sandwiches with the cheese oozing out just enough to make one want to immediately snatch up the sandwich in his jaws. Rick also handed me a bright green colored thick liquid.

"What is that?" I inquired.

"I call it Awesomejuice. Just try it. I dare you not to love it. I also ask you now to please kindly spill your guts. I do not care if it involves the girliest of tears, spill it." Rick said as he stared intensely at me.
I took a sip of Awesomejuice and I did just as Rick asked. It felt great.
"The worst thing is I worked so hard to be the guy she wanted and after all of that she goes and blames me for something being wrong with the relationship. I worked so hard, but I guess it didn't matter for I so clearly was not the person she wanted me to be." I sighed.

"So screw her! Plenty of girls would kill to be with you my friend! you are clearly very emotional, which girls dig. Plus, while I may not be a perfect judge of this, you are quite a 'hunk'." Rick said the last word in the girliest voice possible to avoid any awkwardness from what was admittedly a very nice compliment, "If she didn't like you for who you were and are, what's the point? You should be someone who sees you for exactly who you are and loves you for it. At least that's how I see it" Rick said while once again looking me in the eye. This time he was making large gestures of righteous anger.

I nodded and said,
"Yeah, you do have a point. Alright so now that I've given you my story, what's yours? What do your parents-"

"They don't live here." Rick interjected, "I didn't want to bring it up earlier because we were here to talk about your problems, but yeah I don't live with my parents. For all I know they're somewhere in California." Rick said in that same tone from before.

"Oh. Then how-"

"Can I live on my own? I'm emancipated. I take care of this house as a favor for the landlord and I work for my food, electric, plumbing etc. Oh jeez this is a long story find a comfortable spot to sit, you'll be there for a while." Rick said running his hands through his hair. He looked pained by telling me this news.
I felt very scared for Rick.